Communicating Persuasively, Email or Face-to-Face?

Jeremy Dean writes "Our intuitive understanding is that face-to-face communication is the most persuasive. In reality, of course, it's not always possible to meet in person, so email wins out. How, then, do people react to persuasion attempts over email? Persuasion research has uncovered fascinating effects: that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies (Guadagno & Cialdini, 2002). Women, however, may respond better in face-to-face encounters because they are more 'relationship-minded'. But is this finding just a gender stereotype?"

Comments

Email has failed

[Anonymous Coward]

ask the Airline industry, we invent all these ways to communicate over vast distances, VOIP, Telephone, IM, Email etc etc and people are flying to meet each other more than ever

Re:Perhaps another interesting question applicable

[BadERA]

I hear ya there, and used to feel like I was in the same boat. Practice makes perfect though -- the more f2f time you get, the more refined your skills become.